Persepolis, written by Marjane Strapi, is a type of comic book that I never expected myself reading, only because the author's cultural background was so different from what I am used to. To be honest, I didn't even know that "Iran" and "Persia" is a same country. I was also thinking that "Iran" is same as "Iraq", expecting both countries to be Islamic countries that hate United States of America. The author of this book would probably laugh at me for my lack of knowledge, but seriously, Iran is a very unfamiliar to Koreans. I am not expecting Iranian people to know about differences between North and South Korea.
Anyway, I was very impressed by this book because it gave me a new knowledge about the history that I never learned from schools. I was shocked to see that Iran was once a country with cultural freedom. But something that surprised me more was the fact that the Islamic movement has changed the country to be less independent with individual's life style. I have always thought that culture changes from "conservative" to "progressive", since that was the history I saw from both USA and South Korea. Facing how Iran has changed dramatically by Religious movements and War was quiet scary. Interestingly, all this shocking information came to me in a cute, comic illustration. This interesting cultural background of a young Iranian girl really dragged me into this comic book. She broke the stereotypes I had about girls from Islamic countries. She enjoys her life, has pride in her country, but also knows how to think and talk about what is truly inside of her mind.
This book reminded me of MAUS written by Art Spiegelman, since it talks about the history that they have experienced. I personally prefers Persepolis over MAUS, because Marjane Strapi has mixed good humor along with some seriousness that I found it more entertaining. I am very happy to read such a nice book from different cultural background. I will continue on the second part of the book for farther assignments.
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